Prior to Egypt’s presidential elections, Islamists made clear that
the electoral process was an obligatory form of “holy war.” Then,
any number of Islamic clerics, including influential ones, declared
that it was mandatory for Muslims to cheat during elections—if so
doing would help Islamist candidates win; that the elections were a
form of jihad, and those who die are “martyrs” who will attain the
highest levels of paradise. Top Islamic institutions and influential
clerics, such as Yusuf al-Qaradawi, issued fatwas decreeing that all
Muslims were “obligated” to go and vote for those candidates most
likely to implement Sharia law, with threats of hellfire for those
failing to do so.

The point was simple: democracy, elections, voting, even the
individual candidates, were all means to an end—the establishment of
Sharia law. Cheat, fight, and kill during elections, as long as
doing so enables Sharia; vote only for whoever will enable Sharia;
avoid hell by enabling Sharia. (It is precisely for this reason that
the very first demand made by Islamic leaders is that President Morsi
implement the totality of Sharia law in Egypt. That is, after all,
why so many voted for him.)

That many Egyptian Muslims heeded these commands to lie, cheat,
steal, and kill in order to empower Sharia, there is no doubt. Story
after story appeared in the Egyptian media—much of it missed in the
West—demonstrating as much.

Those dealing with brutal violence speak for themselves. For
example, a Muslim man “beat his pregnant wife to death upon learning
that she had not voted for the Muslim Brotherhood candidate Muhammad
Morsi.” According to police reports, “despite her pleas,” the
husband “battered and bruised” her after discovering she had voted
for the secularist candidate, Ahmed Shafiq. She died later in the
hospital “from injuries sustained.”

Likewise, a farmer was “stabbed” by a “supporter of Morsi,” simply
for putting up a picture of the secular Shafiq on his motorcycle.
Another 52-year-old man and “supporter of Morsi” slapped his mother
for voting for Shafiq. The man took his elderly mother to the voting
booth, informing her that she must vote for Morsi; after she voted,
he pressed her to confirm that she did in fact vote for the Islamist—
only to be told that she did not. The man “lost his temper” and
slapped her in front of the other voters and electoral supervisors.

Finally, and in accord with the Muslim Brotherhood’s own directives,
whole segments of Coptic Christians were prevented from voting.
According to Al Ahram, Egypt’s national newspaper, in Upper Egypt,
where millions of Copts live, “the Muslim Brotherhood blockaded
entire streets, prevented Copts from voting at gunpoint, and
threatened Christian families not to let their children go out and
vote.”

Three observations:

1. Many analysts would like to rationalize these anecdotes away as
byproducts of “third world culture”—not the Islamic religion per se.
Yet it is curious to note that all the violence and threats of
violence that revolved around Egypt’s presidential elections were
committed by the supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood candidate, not
the supporters of the secular candidate, who instead were at the
receiving end of the abuses, including death, violence, humiliation,
and injustices in general. This fact speaks for itself.

2. Noteworthy, too, is that most of those abused were either women
(including wives and mothers) or “dhimmi” Christian Copts—both
members of society that, according to Sharia, are treated as “second-
class citizens,” to be kept in subjugation by Muslim males, the
only “full” citizens of an Islamic state.